13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |"Divine voice " leads to hit-and-run driver

"Divine voice " leads to hit-and-run driver

Rhori Johnston/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis, December 1 - Bradley English died a week before Halloween when a car hit him while he rode his bike.
  
The driver didn't stop and neither did Bradley's mother.
  
She listened to what she says was a divine voice and it led her to the suspect.
  
Joy English says dealing with her son's death is a bit easier now because she knows who's responsible. She knows who drove away after hitting her son.

The accident happened near the intersection of Shelby and Stop Eleven. Witnesses told police they saw a white van or SUV drive away from the scene.

Joy English knew finding a suspect would prove tough. "I kind of vowed to myself, 'You can't be looking at every white vehicle you see because 20 years from now you could still be looking and never find it.'" she said.

It didn't take 20 years. It took 29 days.

Joy says the day before Thanksgiving she drove to the store to get flowers for Brad's grave. "I just had this urgent prompting to turn left into the mobile home park," she said. "I just kept hearing this in my head over and over, only a mother's love.'"

Suddenly, she says, she spotted a white van. Joy called police and asked them to check it out. She says she'll never forget what investigators said when they called back. "The white van that you reported, you caught him. And I just couldn't believe it. I just kept crying and screaming, 'Thank you, thank you,'" she told Eyewitness News.

Police arrested 29-year-old Israel Cardenas and charged him with failure to stop after an accident causing death and driving while suspended.

Joy English says it was divine intervention,"It's God, not me. I know it was God."